Why they rank here
The best pure striker of the modern era, and the game's great what-if. Before his right knee twice gave way, Ronaldo was a phenomenon without precedent: 54 goals in 58 games for PSV, then 47 in 49 in his single Barcelona season (1996-97), where his sprint-and-finish against Compostela remains the definitive image of a striker outrunning an entire defensive concept. He became the youngest Ballon d'Or winner at 21 in 1997 and won FIFA World Player three times (1996, 1997, 2002). After the convulsion that shadowed the 1998 final, his 2002 World Cup redemption — 8 goals, including both in the final against Germany — completed a second title (he was part of the 1994 winning squad) and pushed his World Cup total to 15, the record until Miroslav Klose passed it in 2014. Two Ballons d'Or, two World Cups, and a peak that defenders of the era, from Maldini down, routinely name as the hardest they ever faced: the injuries stole volume, never the verdict.
Career profile
Each bar shows how this athlete compares with the strongest in our all-time list for that metric.